The present invention relates generally to a method for creating a telephone digital switching platform and, more particularly, to a method for creating a telephone switching platform which provides for interfacing and computer controlled switching of both inbound and outbound telephone calls, consisting of various telephonic signal styles including Integrated Services Digital Network (xe2x80x9cISDNxe2x80x9d) signals, Digital Transmission Carrier System (xe2x80x9cT-1xe2x80x9d) signals, Direct Inward Dialing (xe2x80x9cDIDxe2x80x9d) signals, EandM, and Loop Start signals, while maintaining specific account information about each of the calls routed by the telephone digital switching platform.
There is presently a very large installed base of Private Branch Exchange (xe2x80x9cPBXxe2x80x9d) and similar equipment that cannot be connected to digital telephone services. There is also a large base of customer owned telephone equipment that cannot utilize certain telephone company services. As a result of this incompatibility, owners of older style PBX systems or non-digital telephone equipment are faced with the need to totally replace their entire telephone systems if they wish to make use of the currently available digital telephone technology. Additionally, if these current telephone equipment owners choose to continue to rely on their currently outdated equipment, they will have access to only the poorer audio quality provided by older analog telephonic signal technology.
Many current owners of older analog telephone switching systems are Telephone Answering Services (xe2x80x9cTASxe2x80x9d) which act as telephone receptionists, pagers, and message takers for smaller business operations. As a function of the TAS business, it is important to create a method by which information for each call and each TAS customer, including each customer""s preferences, can be stored within a computer system database. While some current PBX systems are now integrated with a computer system to generate this type of database information, those systems do not have the capability of converting the telephone signals into digital signals to take advantage of the digital telephone services of their local telephone service supplier. Additionally, these same current PBX systems cannot maintain a computerized method of generating a TAS computerized customer database capable of identifying the desire of the customer to convert particular types of telephonic signals or to track the calls which have been received, sent, and/or converted based upon the TAS customer""s preference for such conversions.
Although some equipment exists to provide the limited conversion of telephonic signals and for the creation of customer oriented databases for call information, these systems are usually very inflexible and relatively inefficient. Once installed these same systems are also difficult to reconfigure and do not provide a user-friendly interface. Therefore, the users of such systems encounter difficulty in customer account set-up, port configuration, and system monitoring.
The present invention overcomes these and other problems by providing a method for detecting and categorizing the type of telephonic signal received by the switching platform and converting those calls to match the type of PBX and telephone equipment currently in operation by the user. The present invention provides a flexible interface between any current telephone services available from the local servicing telephone company and this older equipment. Of particular note is the ability of the invention to provide direct conversion of primary rate ISDN voice calls to analog DID within a single device. Prior to this, a number of series connected devices were required.
The present invention also provides simple equipment setup which uses off-the-shelf computer components and telephonic interface control devices. Additionally, the algorithms of the present invention allow for generation of computer software capable of functioning on a Windows NT(copyright), Unix(copyright), or Linux(copyright) operating system. These algorithms dictate the methodology for achieving the switching and routing accomplished by the present invention to achieve all of the above delineated effects. These algorithms identify the type of call received and how the call is treated after comparison of that call""s characteristics to on board customer database information.
This invention also consists in the parts and in the arrangements and combinations of parts hereinafter described and claimed.
Therefore, the present invention resides in a method for creating a telephone digital switching system which uses a digital computer system equipped with telephonic control devices installed in said computer, and algorithms written in a computer system language compatible with a Windows NT(copyright), Unix(copyright), or Linux(copyright) based operating system installed in said computer to provide both physical and logical conversion and routing of received telephone calls. Inbound and outbound trunks are grouped by interface type and/or logical function and are controlled by the system administrator program operating in conjunction with a combination of configuration files and interactive input. Based on the type of inbound interface, call setup information is used to derive an index value account used for lookup of the current call. The information stored in the database record for the account includes dial number translation data for two outbound trunk groups. Selection between the primary and secondary dial group is based on time of day, channel availability, caller input (DTMF tone detect) and response to outbound call attempt.
It is an object of the invention to provide a method to convert any type of incoming telephonic signal to any type of currently used outgoing signaling format. Line interfaces can be any combination of ISDN; T-1, DID EandM and/or Loop Start lines with port extensions up to 2,000 ports.
It is another object of the invention to provide a digital telephone switching system which can be used to upgrade any older PBX or TAS system to less expensive ISDN service.
It is also an object of the invention to provide a method of routing any telephone number, using a user programmable interface, to an unlimited number of telephone systems by account number, DID, DNIS, time of day, input from caller, or real-time call activity such as no answer or busy.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide a method of setting up customer accounts, port configurations and system monitoring, and the other above described capabilities by utilizing a user-friendly administrative interface.
Other objects and features of the present invention will be in part apparent and in part pointed out hereinafter.
FIG. 1 illustrates a computer system incorporating the current invention. Although the drawing implies that central office and customer premises connection are isolated on different adapters, this is not required.
FIG. 2 illustrates the basic program flow for the software component of the invention.
FIG. 3 illustrates the program flow used for processing each inbound call.
FIG. 4 illustrates the method for generating a unique account index for each call. This index is used for account database access.
FIG. 5 illustrates the relationships among the several interactive administrative functions which are part of the current invention.